How to Install Windows 8 Preview on HTC Shift

byAsif BokharionSeptember 22, 2011

We have a greats news for HTC Shifts users. Windows 8 Developers Preview which was recently released by Microsoft can now be installed on HTC shift handsets. Once again thanks to an XDA Developer who has made it possible for you. All basic driver support appears to be in order, including support for video acceleration, touchscreen and WiFi. I will guide to step by step with complete set of instructions along with a video demonstration.

Whats Needed

1- USB with 8GB or above available space.

2- USB Ethernet adaptor if available(Optional).

Important
You can save a lot of time by using USB Ethernet adaptor. Once you have completed the installation, all you have to do is just enable internet on HTC Shift using USB Ethernet adopter and let the Shift install all drivers from Windows Update. However, as a worst case scenario we assumes you don’t have a USB Ethernet adaptor.

Once you finished downloading Windows 8 Developer Preview ISO, just install the USB download tool, select the downloaded Windows 8 ISO and then finally select the USB stick on which you want to install. Start the process, it will take some time, if there is no warning then you are done.

Copy Required Softwares to USB

Open your USB drive and create a “Drivers” folder on the root. Copy Intel GMA drivers and Windows Mobile Device Center to the Drivers folder which is just created in USB stick. Extract all the other ZIP files you downloaded into this folder Such as “:\Drivers\shagctrl_1[1].2.6.122-control center\ , :\Drivers\TouchScreen(1[1].1.0.2)”.

Note: Don’t try and work with compressed ZIP files when installing on the Shift. Until everything is setup it is just pain you don’t need , you better off just extracting everything that is not an EXE to it’s own folder before you start.

Installation Procedure

1- Insert USB stick into the Shifts USB port and switch on the device. Now just set USB stick as first booting device by selecting Fn + 0 (F10) at BIOS boot screen . Incase changes are not being shown then stopped the stick being marked as bootable.

Note: If when you run setup it does not find a hard disk on the Shift the chances are you may have an odd partition layout (I noticed this after I had Meego installed to the HDD with BtrFS). If that is the case you will need to use DISKPART from the Windows recovery command prompt to wipe the disk and add back a traditional disk layout. If you need help with that leave a comment.

5- Select and delete every disk partition on HTC Shift. All you should see at the end is ‘Disk 0 Unallocated Space’

6- Click “Next” and it will start the installation wizard.

Note: Leave the Shift to settle for a few minutes as Windows is actually installing a lot of the device drivers in the background and you will not actually have a working keyboard for the 1st few seconds anyway.

Graphics, touchscreen and the like will not be correctly setup at this point so you will only be able to use the trackpad mouse and keyboard for input.

7- Once wizard is complete, it will take you to main Metro screen. Now all you need is to actually get all hardware drivers working so that HTC Shift bring out the best graphical goodness, touchscreen, 3G etc for you.

Getting the hardware working

Tip: Don’t forget that the Windows key switches between the active application and the Metro interface. This starts to make more sense when you consider that the classic Windows desktop is actually being run as an application from Metro.

Now your logged into Windows 8 you will need to do a few things to get the Shift up and running.

Warning: The driver install order below is the one that worked well for me and mitigated the problems that arise with the hardware or SmartScreen filtering (now baked into the core of Windows) not allowing installs due to the lack of internet access to check digital signatures.

If you install the drivers out of order be prepared to deal with Windows not letting you run files due to SmartScreen errors at various points .

Everything else not mentioned here like the fingerprint scanner and webcam sees to work well out of the box once you get online and it grabs drivers from Windows Update.

Start off by navigating to the Windows Explorer tile on the Metro screen and click it, this will take you to a traditional Windows Explorer screen on the classic desktop surface, select the removable disk you installed Windows 8 from and navigate into the ‘Drivers’ folder you created earlier.

Drivers Installation

1 – Install the Embedded Controller driver:

Note: Both the EC and TouchScreen drivers must be installed in compatibility mode for ‘Windows Vista (Service Pack 2)’

After the reboot navigate to the Windows Explorer tile on the Metro screen and click it, select the removable disk you installed Windows 8 from and navigate into the ‘Drivers\VistaECDrvV1[1].0.1.10’ folder you created earlier, then right click on ‘Setup.exe’ and select ‘Properties’, from there select the ‘Compatibility’ tab and setup the program to in in compatibility mode for ‘Windows Vista (Service Pack 2)’. Hit return to close the properties window.

Now run ‘setup.exe’ from the ‘Drivers\VistaECDrvV1[1].0.1.10’ folder and run through the install until finished. It should say the EC driver was successfully installed.

2 – Install touchscreen support:

Next up we need to install the touchscreen driver.

Note: The TouchScreen driver must be ‘Run as Administrator’.

The TouchScreen driver install also pokes some I/O addresses behind the scenes, setup by the EC driver, enabling later parts of the install and is critical.

Navigate into the ‘Drivers\TouchScreen(1[1].1.0.2)’ folder you created earlier, then right click on ‘ATSV1102(WHQLed).exe’ and select ‘Properties’, from there select the ‘Compatibility’ tab and setup the program to in in compatibility mode for ‘Windows Vista (Service Pack 2)’. Hit return to close the properties window.

Now right click on the ‘ATSV1102(WHQLed).exe’ from the ‘Drivers\TouchScreen(1[1].1.0.2)’ folder select “Run as Administrator” (very important). Run through the install until finished.

It should ask for a reboot (got to love drivers). Let it reboot. After the reboot you should have a working touchscreen and a bunch of other processes kicked off and drivers being automagically installed.

3 – Installing the Synaptics Micro Pad Driver:

Note: This driver must be installed before the Shift Control Center.

Just run “setup.exe” from ‘Drivers\Synaptics MicroPad(10[1].0.11.1)’ and run through the setup process.

Select no when asked about rebooting at the end.

4 – Installing the HTC Shift Control Center:

Navigate to the Windows Explorer tile on the Metro screen and click it, this will take you to a traditional Windows Explorer screen, select the removable disk you installed Windows 8 from and navigate into the ‘Drivers\shagctrl_1[1].2.6.122-control center’ folder you created earlier.

Right click on ‘Setup.exe’ and select ‘Properties’, from there select the ‘Compatibility’ tab and setup the program to in in compatibility mode for ‘Windows Vista (Service Pack 2)’.

Now you can ok the properties window and actually run ‘Setup.exe’. Select all the prompts and let it run through the setup.

Warning: At the end of the setup you will get a message asking you to enable the ‘Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.1’ feature.

You should cancel the request to enable .Net (not the main install) for the moment and let the main install finish. It is not actually needed by the part of the Shift Control Center we wish to use to enable WiFi.

This step is necessary as you will need working Internet access before you can enable the .Net feature and you don’t have working Internet just yet ..

Once setup has completed select yes and let the Shift restart.

5 – Hackish steps to get WiFi driver working and get Internet access

Now you have the device rebooted and the Shift Control Center installed (but not fully working due to the lack of .NET 3.5.1) you can use it to toggle the Wireless LAN setting and start the process of getting connected to the internet.

Navigate to the “Shift Control Center” tile on the Metro screen (scroll over to the far right to see the Metro tiles for things you have installed) and click it, this will take you to the Shift Control Panel just as you remember it. Turn on Wireless LAN (toggle it if it thinks it is already on) and let Windows find a nice unknown bit of hardware.

Close the Shift Control Center and navigate to Windows Explorer. Scroll down to ‘Computer’ on the left hard side and right click it then select ‘Manage’.

Browse your computer and select the Drivers folder you extracted everything to earlier. Hit next and let Windows install the Wireless driver.

Tip: You may need a reboot (I did on one of my test installs) so if you have wireless problems try that (power options are now hidden under ‘Start’, ‘Settings’ and ‘Power’ in the menu that pops up on the right hand side.

Now you can connect to your wireless network by clicking on the wireless icon in the tray area (classic desktop). Control Panel/Wireless in Metro does not seem to work until the system has visited Windows Update, hmmm…

Once you actually have a working network connection (USB Ethernet or Wireless) you can finish off the install and put the digitally signed executable drivers on the Shift.

6 – Install Windows Mobile Device Center:

Navigate back to the Windows Explorer and just run “drvupdate-x86.exe” from wherever you put the drivers and run through the setup process. The install starts automatically and just silently exits at the end.

7 – Install Graphics Drivers:

Next up run “win7_1512754.exe” from wherever you put the graphics drivers and run through the setup process. Select yes to rebooting at the end (do this or things get very messy).

Once the system restarts it will come up in a very high resolution interpolated mode (1152*864 to be precise) that is not very easy on the eyes in the classic desktop .

Warning: Some Metro apps (a lot actually) require a minimum resolution of1024*768 to run so the 1024*600 normal high resolution interpolated mode is not enough to run everything in Metro.

Setting the screen manually to 1152*864, or not changing it after you install the graphics driver, fixes this. I’ll try and knock up an app to toggle the screen resolution 3 ways rather than the current 2. That way people can stuff use the desktop at 1024*600 and Metro at 1152*864.

8 – Enable .NET 3.5.1:

There are a few last missing things from having a basically feature complete setup. The handy little app that switches between the normal (800*480) and regular high res interpolated (1024*600) mode is actually the component of the Shift Control Center that is written in .NET.

The easiest way to force the install of .NET now you have a working network connection is to press the resolution switch button (above the touchpad) and have Windows try and run the app then switch to the classic desktop, it will then detect the app needs .NET and guide you down the process.

Once that is done your shortcut buttons for the resolution change and Shift Control Center should now work as expected and you can toggle 800*480 and 1024*600 on the fly.

9 – Check Windows Update:

Almost done, we just want to check Windows Update from the Shift and make sure we have picked up all the driver updates and other stuff that may be needed.

Just navigate to ‘Control Panel’ in Metro and scroll down to ‘More Options’ and then select ‘System and Security’, ‘Windows Update’. Then click ‘Check for Updates’.

While your here you may also want to enable the ‘Get updates for other Microsoft products’, your choice really.

10 – Link your user with your Windows Live ID:

This step is solely optional but as a lot of the Metro apps in the Developer Preview are tied up with Live ID integration it may not a bad idea to do this.

Navigate into the ‘Control Panel’ tile and tap ‘Users’, from here you can link your user to your Windows Live ID so integration with cloud cruft like SkyDrive becomes seamless.